Could Marvel Studios Potentially Start Putting Out Four Films A Year In Phase 4?

Could the recent slew of release date announcements for upcoming Marvel films have brought a new development to light? There's a chance the studio might begin putting our 4 movies a year instead of 3...

With the recent news that Avengers: Infinity War 's release has been moved up one week to April 27th and the unveiling of several new Marvel film release dates (which will likely compose the upcoming Phase 4), one particular thing stood out: each year has 3 films listed on Disney's slate.

Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm - which Disney bought for a total of $15.5 billion - account for 42% of the company's film slate over next five years. (And the percentage will actually be higher, because this list doesn't include some "Star Wars" movies we know are coming.) pic.twitter.com/uXUVxE8vta

This could mean something interesting relating to Spider-Man. As you can see, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming (slated for 2019) is not present in this release list, since this schedule is for Disney's upcoming slate, and not Sony's. However, what this could also mean that a potential third installment would be outside this list, meaning that Marvel Studios may release four movies in one year.

While the announcement of a third film could potentially bump all the others down the line (like the announcements of Ant-Man and the Wasp and Homecoming itself did for Phase 3's schedule), Marvel would likely rather avoid sudden alterations to the schedule after a big announcement (such as the eventual cancelling of the Phase 3 Inhumans movie).

Feige himself has stated in the past that the possibility for four films was something he had thought of, in an interview with Birth Movies Death in 2014.

I think television is filling some of that now, in terms of bringing out more product. That’s certainly the idea with the Netflix shows. But I don’t know that we will necessarily say “Okay, we’re now moving strategically to three a year, now we’re moving to four a year.” What I think is more likely - if [knocks on wood-like table] the next group of movies work and people want to see additional stories - we’ll have too many franchises and you can’t do one of each franchise every two or three years. We’d have to move to three a year, but that would have to be a natural move if it were to occur. We’d have a [script] draft, we’d have a filmmaker, we’d have a character the audience wants to see - let’s slot in a place for a third one. Or a fourth one.

This also doesn't take into account developments with the X-Men franchise, which, according to Disney CEO Bob Iger, will eventually be incorporated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, alongside Deadpool and the Fantastic Four.

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